Ready to make "Well-Being Wednesday" a part of next year's post-Thanksgiving recovery? No? Me either because I want well-being to be a daily part of my life, not a day in the year or week. It seems fitting after a weekend of stuff and stuffing that we talk about substance.

Comments, direct messages, forwarding your post, tagging others, even a “like”--all of that is someone engaging with you. They went simply beyond just following your feed and quickly scanning your post--they chose to make another connection point. What does this have to do with your workplace or organization? More than you may think!

What if we walked people up to the ledge, rather than talking them down from it? The view is beautiful! This ledge has nothing to do with death (as many may think of when standing on the edge of a ledge) but rather life instead! Recently I was meeting with my business mentor and he said something to the effect of…

The fourth industrial revolution is upon us. Worldwide, jobs are changing at a pace that is hard to keep up with. Workplaces are becoming virtual, artificial intelligence will soon take over a percentage of certain job classes, automation continues to rise, physical workplaces are being resigned to accommodate a new generation of employees, and new jobs are being created that our parents couldn’t have even dreamed of.

At our last Wellness Underground workshop we did something on the last day that we had not done before. We pooled together all of our talents, skills, experience and inspiration to brainstorm and pull together actionable ideas for one of our attendees. Craig was an attendee who came to us as a physical education teacher that is part of a team that is heading up a wellness initiative for their school district that was funded by a grant. We planned it out so that after two days of "workshopping" and learning, the attendees could put what they learned to work!

Wellness Underground has seemed to develop our own way to use some words and somewhat altered or changed their meaning to fit in with our workshop, experience and events. There we go again, doing something out of the box!

"Something shifted when I started listening to people’s struggles and needs in relation to their well-being without a readiness to tell them how I could fix it. Something shifted for them and for me. I had the opportunity to get to know people intimately.

Wellness Underground is full of real people! Real people with common, unique, mundane, exiting and realistic careers. Real people who find us in a variety of ways. Real people who present us with interesting challenges. Real people who propose some exciting and atypical ideas. Real people who have goals and passions. Real people who may be burnt out. Real people.

As a wellness professional, are you shaping the industry or is the industry shaping you? What I mean by this question is this: Over the span of your career, have you been true to YOU and what you stand for? Or have you been dutiful to “best practices” because, well, they are the best?

It has been said that, “He who would do great things should not attempt them all alone.” Greatness goes beyond us. It’s something bigger and deeper than any one person or brand. It requires a rebellion against the way things have always been done.

The most awesome six minutes and 40 seconds of my career was in February 2016 when I gave a peer presentation to an intimate group of industry leaders, friends, and colleagues from the wellness industry.

The wellness industry may have reached a point where we, the professionals with the most vested interest in the field, need to claim our leadership of the industry and demand that wellness programs be led from within each individual organization. We can and should separate wellness from the grasps of those parties who don’t truly understand wellness or who are working to make wellness a monetized commodity.

Constructive is defined as "constructing or tending to construct; helping to improve; promoting further development or advancement" by dictionary.com . One definition of 'disruptive' as defined by dictionary.com: "relating to or noting a new product, service, or idea that radically changes an industry or business strategy, especially by creating a new market and disrupting an existing one".

Several years ago I was sitting at my desk watching a WELCOA webinar regarding the results of the salary survey they had just completed. The results were fairly dismal; even more so for women (who comprise the majority of the industry). I remember David Hunnicutt doing his best to keep things honest while remaining positive. I didn’t envy him for his task.

Whether or not we want to admit it, a return on any Investment (ROI) would be nice. Whether it’s my stock portfolio or my wellness program, putting a number next to something somehow seems to validate the expenditure of resources (time, talent, money, etc.). However, ROI is just one part of a much bigger umbrella of overall VALUE.

Wellness Underground

Wellness Underground is a collective group that has a passion for people! We offer a workshop or event every year to connect professionals together with a common goal of improving community and culture in the workplace.

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Looking for more info? Questions about A People Movement? Do you have a light-bulb moment or out of the box idea you want to share? We want to hear from you!